Furious residents in villages including Minster, Monkton, St Nicholas-at-Wade, Cliffsend and further afield in areas such as Tilmanstone and Nonington were awoken at 5am today (August 7) by the noise of numerous paramotor pilots overhead.
The first FAI World Paramotor Endurance Championships are being hosted at Manston airport this month ( 3-10 August) but people are questioning why those taking part had to launch at such an early hour.
Taking to the Miniplane Paramotors and the FIA championship social media pages to vent their frustration, one tired villager said: “Completely unacceptable to be launching at 5am and flying so low across the local villages. The noise has disturbed everyone in Minster, Cliffsend and the surrounding villages.
“At the very least we should have been notified that some disturbance was likely but at best, launch later at a reasonable time and take other people into consideration.”
Another added: “5am! How has this been allowed with no consideration, consultation or information for local people, it’s completely unacceptable. Everyone in Minster has enjoyed watching you fly up until now so it’s a shame you’ve managed to upset a whole community with such an early, unnecessary start.”
Paramotoring is a form of ultralight aviation where the pilot wears a back-pack motor, which provides enough thrust to take off using a paraglider. Steering away from live flight paths, paramotor pilots can ascend several thousand feet into the air, but typically fly at around 1,000 feet, their small motors making a buzz as they pass overhead.
The FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale – World Air Sports Federation) World Paramotor Endurance Championships involves pilots to compete in both foot launch and trike classes. Sponsored by Liberty Paramotors and Vittorazi Motors, it is the first time the endurance format has been delivered as a championship event at this level.
The competition involves a series of navigational and piloting challenges. Pilots are permitted a maximum number of flying hours each day, within a longer flying window that uses the majority of daylight hours.
According to the competition website, flying will normally take place between 7am and 9pm throughout each day of the competition.
However, some pilots launched at 5am today with two and a half hours of flight.
A message sent to a resident by the organisers says: “We are very sorry you were disturbed so early.Legally we can fly from 30 minutes before sunrise and after sunset.
“We took this difficult decision to fly early this morning as the weather has been bad for our world championship. We have pilots who have travelled from across the world to compete, we have to ensure we have a valid championship.
“We will always do our best not to disturb anyone if possible. Again our sincere apologies.”
Barney Townsend, Chair of the British Paramotor Competitions Panel, said: “Due to unexpectedly high winds throughout this week, which are now forecast to remain too high for the rest of the week to allow safe flying, we were faced this morning with the difficult choice between using the light winds in the early morning hours in order to achieve a valid championship, or probably not flying again, which would result in an invalid championship and a huge disappointment for all the pilots and teams who have come so far to be here, from as far away as Japan, Australia, and the USA.
“All flights this morning conformed to Air Law: pilots took off within 30 minutes of official sunrise, and were flying in class G Airspace at a minimum of 500 feet height. Furthermore, the pilots were explicitly requested to fly closer to 1000 feet, which we can see from the GPS track logs that they did.
“We are very sorry to have disturbed the local residents this morning. It was essential for the needs of the championship; now that we have achieved a valid number of flying hours, we will be able to confer the award of official world champion status to the top pilots.
“I can promise that the early starts will not happen again – and due to the weather, it is highly likely that there will be no more flying at all. Furthermore, due to the redevelopment plans of Manston, we will never be returning to use this site again after this week.”
Thought RSP said there would be no night-flights !!
They, of course, said there will be no scheduled night flights. However, freight flights are not ‘scheduled’.
Whilst it may be regrettable some residents were disturbed, wind, weather and light conditions have to be considered for safety.
However, I do agree some form of notification of the potential early start should have been advertised.
Absolute rubbish. If the weather is bad, call it off. Same as cricket!!
Agree with comments. Woken at 5.30 this morning by parameters going round and around my home in Manston, and yesterday too. It’s bad enough trying to sleep in the heat when you have work in the morning. Far too early. Environmental health needs to get on board.
Sympathise with residents but if the fabled airport did ever open for cargo flights it would be a hell of a lot noisier and more unpleasant.
Luckily the freight airport will never open !
Your right Keith, the thousands of people living under the flight paths of Manston airport will have to get used to having dirty old 4 engine jumbo jets flying in 2 an hour! Thats not scaremongering, I saw what these can do when I used to make a street collection for an animal charity outside of Wilko in Ramsgate, when they flew over the harbour, and up the High Street at between 300 and 25 meter high! People were screaming in terror!
Dumpton – Oh dear. Your perception of height is a bit dodgy – 25 meters above Ramsgate, I do not think so. As for dirty old 4 engined jumbo jets, I do not think so. Aircraft design and operations have moved on which you appear to have missed. Old aircraft are no longer viable for operators.
Whether the aircraft are old or new, at 300m or 26m, 2 or 4 engined, the noise from them will be far, far worse than that caused by the paragliding.
For one thing, scheduled flights will take off and land throughout the day from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
And unscheduled arrivals could turn up at any time during the night.
Not really born out by Statistica that show the average age for freight airport is already over 20 years and is predicted to rise further by 2030. By 2025, the cargo aircraft fleet is expected to have an average age of 23.3 years.
That was a typo FedupB, it should read 250 meters, and my calculations were accepted, along with drawings, proving the heights, and flight paths of aircraft over Ramsgate Harbour, until arriving at Nethercourt about 150 meters, before touch down!
Bring on the freight, sooner the better
How many people on here talking bollocx get over yourself jets land and take off in minutes not nonstop all fuc@ing day
Absolute muppet….. it takes a plane less than a minute, once it’s engines are running, to take off and dissappear! Those fu@king things you can hear half hour before they get to you and another half hour going away and if your unlucky they fly round in circles above your house for another couple of hours …. stop winning about the airport and get over it
Disgraceful behaviour by these knobheads. I to was woken at 5am as at least 10 kept flying around.
The noise is bad enough at the weekend with the drone of these machines but 5am in the morning.
These people obviously don’t give two hoots about the general public.
wahh
Time to get the shotgun out..
Good idea.
Why is anyone surprised? RSP don’t give two hoots about residents or noise. Anyone suggesting cargo aviation has moved on is also in a dream world.
“cargo aviation has moved on”
It certainly has.
To proper, functioning cargo hubs.
Absolutely – this lovely local airport cannot compete in the “new” world.
And if a few days of noise has generated this thread, I dont understand why people are moving into the new builds spreading out towards Manston………
It’s cliffsend and afar near there. Complaining about everything all the time. 😂 “The roads too busy” the pavements have Ants” “Ole uncle Bert was woken up by a mosquito, 3 in the AM!” “The foxes were getting it on in ‘me’ garden”…..
The airport is never going to open.
It won’t open because it’s simply not viable a they’ll never get the investment.
RSP will continue to find reasons to blame the council or the govt for this or that and then, in 2027 – will declare that investors have been ‘driven away’ by a lack of support.
Freudman will have made his millions, the land will be used for housing and Birchington and Garlinge will already be built upon.
The whole thing is a long con.
SCUM
wife saw loads of them up there when I was with the dog. Scared terribly. Still not calmed down days later. “thanks” – not
The dog or the wife?
Get those heavy planes flying again. Can’t wait.
Yes please. At least they come and go, not hover in the air nearby for hours on end.
Get used to it. This what flying from Manston will be like.
Dick Symonds
Have you asked yourself why no work has started at manston yet ? Been a few months since the appeal was stopped.
Nothing to stop the work now. But nothing ! Nothing has happened no investors for the 800 million. No haulage company planning to relocate at manston. No freight companies saying their coming to manston.
The silence since the JR is deafening.
I thought everything thing was in place to start work as the JR was delaying it. No JR now bit still Nothing lol.
Manston is as dead as a dodo as is the port.
Just read their response it basically says ‘tough we want to do our champions regardless of the general public.
Well my response is just ‘do one’ and thankfully the wind will be to strong now. PS manston is by the coast and it’s always windy by 9am so way choose manston ?
Their response to you, should be do-one, given they’re legally within their rights to fly.
Bet none of you complain about similar levels of background noise when the farmers are out at 3/4/5am harvesting their fields though…or at 2am when the air ambo flies over birch/westgate/garlinge…
Why would anyone living in the countryside complain about farmers ? Do a very important job unlike like these selfish knobheads who couldn’t careless about the local community.
Ah the farmers…… providing food for us all.
Air ambulance? Have you re read your comment? These people are doing nothing for society except being a nuisance at 5am! Both farmers and ambulance services are necessary. If your house was on fire at night do you expect them to turn up silently?
Get in! Best comment on here! Why they would fly over hunting territory! If I miss a pheasant and take one of them out who’s fault would it be? On the website is says like a lawnmower in the distance…. Well five lawnmowers together is significantly louder than one lawnmower and no one mows a feckin lawn at 5 am
Personally, I never heard a thing and I live as close to Manston Airfield as you can get…besides living on the runway ! I saw some going over the other day, I only looked up because I heard a buzzing and wondered what it was ! I’ve heard more noise at silly o’clock in the morning / night from cars and motorbikes who think that the Thanet Way is a racetrack
5am, woken ? im out walking my dogs by then, its not the end of the world, people need to maybe get a grip and stop going all karen over something thats a non issue
it’s a shame they not coming back tbh looks like fun and for a few days I’m sure you can appreciate safety why moan about it you moved to live closer to the airport no1 made you live there and would be great to have an up and running air poet again
I live thirty miles away! In the sticks. They woke me up at 5 am. It’s not about living close just look at their website and look at the live tracking …. It shows they flew all over Kent at 5 am
It’s not just today us in Manston have had over a week of it from 5am to 10pm, so close to the house i can read there reg numbers. One of them had a speaker playing music. With the hot weather we all want our windows open, but the noise from them is just too much.
Surely there is a law of how low they can fly and what times are allowed.
So sorry to see this many hateful and mostly untrue comments. It was an interesting experience competing in England and everyone I got to talk with was quite supportive and curious about the sport. I guess it’s just the people who wake up at 10 and have nothing better to do with their lives than to complain. Consider it a blessing that you have this luxury.
And just to clarify, there were only 3 flyable days in the 10 days of competition and the pilots cannot even carry phones, let alone speakers 😀 and flying below 500ft would get them penalized so if you could read our numbers, kudos on your sight!
You are wrong !! Maybe 3 days of competition flying but there was three days of practising beforehand.
100% below 500ft perhaps just on the practice days.
The luxury people as you so call it are not the ones complaining.
I am not a liar and only stating fact, if you are part of the members team or committee you should be a shamed of your self and just put your hands up and say sorry, it will be better programmed in, if it every comes to Thanet again.
Rude, selfish, arrogant,
My team hasn’t arrived in time for practice days but I’m still doubtful the laws are the same pretty much everywhere and pilots are used to following them.
Either way, you shouldn’t be that grumpy over a bit of noise (or people having a good time?). Give it a try. It’s quite an experience. However, you would have to get up a bit earlier. I cannot remember a day when I wasn’t up at 5 whether for work or flying.
Btw I found your comment to be quite a testimony to the situation the organizer team had to deal with so I quoted you to our national aviation magazine 😀
I live in Eythone and was woken up at 05:00am this morning by the noise, terrible o thought the builders just up the road had started earlier than usual. But no, about five of these contraptions Wer flying overhead for about an hour. I was sorely tempted to launch a few rockets at them, if I had some I would have! It’s been bad enough the last few weekends with groups of them buzzing around overhead?
You lot wanted aircraft at the multiple times failed airfield, wait until the old, large polluting, very,very,very noisy cargo planes go in and out, not to mention the Airways and structural vibration damage they cause. At least it will go belly up inside seven years. However, at what cost in the interim for a known to fail vanity project.
Steve, you appear to be able to read into the future, please tell me Saturday’s winning Lottery Numbers.
The irony of locals moaning about the noise from a few tiny engines but are clamouring to bring back the dirty noisy planes. Not to mention all the fuel trucks to keep it going. Be careful what you wish for.
😴 planes fly higher and don’t sound like a freakin’ Mosquito 🦟
Cargo planes may fly higher, but unfortunately they have to start and finish at ground level, which will be a lot closer than a pesky mosquito for a week. Waste land, airport, new houses, each option brings issues to everyone who chose to live near Manston.
https://ppgcomps.co.uk/live-tracking/ You dont have to live near the airport.!!! Flying as far as Folkestone
Five AM… four Paramotors or lawnmowers in the distance as described on their website, 100 ft above your house…..in the middle of the county. Who else wants their lawns mowing at 5 am? Text me happy to work outside of the normal hours of gardening!
So these are the kn0bheads. We are in Whitstable and we were fuming enough at the pre-8am racket Low, loud and bang overtop residential. Feel for the 5am lot.